Facebook and other Western social media including Twitter are banned in China. Zuckerberg has long

been courting China’s leaders in a so far futile attempt to access the country with the world’s largest

number of Internet users—668 million as of last year.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during a panel discussion held as part of the China Development Forum at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, Saturday, March 19, 2016. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

China has been increasing control over its Internet, dubbed the Great Firewall because it is already

heavily censored. Liu, a member of the ruling Communist Party’s top leadership panel, the Politburo

Standing Committee, recently said that all Internet users must not cross the “baseline” when discussing

China’s governance.

Chinese censors have introduced a slate of new regulations to better enable them to police digital

and social media as closely as traditional publications. The country’s top Internet regulator has

repeatedly warned that an untamed cyberspace would pose a risk to domestic security and the